Little Beer Friend
by Cozzybob
Summary: A very old oneshot and my first attempt at Duo's POV. Duo goes back to L2 after the war to find himself, and he meets an old face in the process.


**Little Beer Friend**  
by cozzybob  
**  
Pairs: **gen... possible 1-2 if you're desperate.  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own this. It's a fanfic. I'm poor. Very. Very. Poor.**  
Archive:** Yes, please. I'll link you back, just tell me so I can.  
**Warning:** umm… depression? Heavy angst. It's sad, but no deaths really. No yaoi, even though he talks about Heero a lot. It's s'pose to be a friendship thing. nods

**Note: **Extremely old, extremely bad. My very first attempt at Duo's POV.

* * *

The bar was an old landmark to what I'd call one hell of a childhood. Or maybe it was more of an adulthood, I really don't know. I guess that's why I went back there, to the L2 colony. The demons were calling me out again for another sparring, and this time I wasn't going to let them get the better of me. Back then I didn't know that I had Shinigami. I didn't have Deathscythe. I was just some dirty runt pick-pocketing wallets and eating out of dumpsters. I lived against the metal wall of an office building in some alley between my food source and another wall.

Maybe things have changed, things did look admittedly better. I didn't see any homeless children (not to say there weren't any), and I didn't run into any OZ assholes, but then again, I hadn't seen them since I killed them all so many years ago. They're all dead, but they still live in us. I don't think you can forget things like that. Believe me, I've tried. Relena had given personal attention to clean this place, especially when she discovered my origins and how little Maxwell came to be. She persuaded the public to move toward a better condition for the colony and humanity as a whole. I have to admit, she's good. It did look a lot better.

Maybe too good. I'm afraid of change. I've been changing my whole life.

"Excuse me lad, but how old are you?"

It was the bartender. Drinking age on L2 was increased to 21 only recently. Too many idiots were getting killed in vehicle accidents and there was increase in domestic violence, which is often fueled by none other than alcohol. Relena's peace movement was still receiving tired resistance, but there was no denying the changes. Everything had changed since I last lived here.

I wanted to laugh. _Yes, Duo. How old are you? _I had probably saved that man's ass more than once in my lifetime and he didn't even know my name. I studied him, too tired to put on my mask so simply gave him a weak grin. He was about sixty and looked vaguely familiar. He might've been a food source when I was little. Either that or a source for more pain.

"Seventeen."

The man squinted at me, rubbing his chin. Instead of reprimanding me for drinking under age, he whispered a curse softly and grinned from ear to ear. "I know that braid anywhere, Duo Maxwell." I jumped at the use of my name, and he grinned even wider. "Don't worry about it. You're probably older than I am anyway."

"Do I know you?" I glared, trying to read him. He did look familiar.

"No, probably not. Didn't think you'd remember me."

"Who are you?" I was getting more than just a little annoyed. I wanted to be alone. I left Heero and the others to be alone. I came here to be alone. I grew up here, all alone. I was too drunk and depressed to really give a damn about being 'good old obnoxious Duo.' My mask had went on a temporary vacation, and I wanted to be alone. Just once. _Let me breathe, just o__nce, without the safety of a mask._

"Name's Clint. Little monsters used to call me Crazy Clint."

Now I remembered. I grinned and actually smiled with genuine sincerity. "Crazy Clint, eh? I remember now. You were the dude that smuggled beer to me while I was livin in the church. Thought it was cute, you said."

The bartender guffawed and slapped a thick hand on the counter. "Yeah, that was me. You use to come crawlin in here all the time tryin to steal my food, and so I let you have what I coulda spared. Eventually, all you really wanted was the drinks so I lent you my cheapest beer. After the priest got a hold of you, I thought I'd never need see you again, but you ended up commin back as always. Didn't like it at first, but hell you were the only one I ever talked to 'sides drunks and I kinda liked you anyway. And yeah, I still think it was cute. You'd come in that little church outfit and ask for a beer." He let out a generous laugh. "Never forgot that, even now."

I laughed with him and sighed, amused at what I'd run into. It was like meeting an old friend, only I'd never really known him that well to begin with. It felt good, and still somewhat lonely. Or maybe I was just being negative.

"Aye, then the years passed and the church--" He paused, avoiding it. No use in digging up fossils that big with nothing to really show for it. "I never saw your face again 'til it was plastered all over the damn place when OZ was after you. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. My little beer friend, becomin a Gundam pilot. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud." He grinned. "I followed up on you much as I could risk after that, but after the war, you went low key and I lost all news of you. Didn't bother goin to find ya since I was jus' happy you were at peace. Little warrior you were, back then. If I'd knew who you'd be when ya got older, I'd have given you this whole damn god-forsaken bar." He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the old metal wonderworks with his eyes glittering. After a moment, he slumped back on the counter and eyed me closely, a sigh on his lips. "Seventeen don't cut it, kid. I'm sixty and I ain't even that old."

"Yeah, but sometimes I think I'm the youngest."

"Youngest?" He looked at me like I had three heads. No brothers or sisters, so no youngest. I guess he didn't understand the concept of being a Gundam pilot. I had lived and died with those four and they were brothers if I ever had any. Well, in a long time anyway. I guess Solo should count as my father--or at least a brotherly one.

I sighed and grinned belatedly, watching the confusion etch his face. "Nevermind."

The man named Clint brushed it off, but didn't take the hint that I wanted to be alone. He didn't look stupid, so maybe he was just lonely. Or intelligent. It didn't take a genius to figure out that I was long past being depressed, and after you got used to the knowledge that I was soldier and a damn good one, it didn't really take much more than that to figure out I was beyond being suicidal as well. I'd tried it. That's how I got here in the first place.

The man grunted, and his eyes danced. He echoed my bitter thoughts. "What brings you back here anyway?"

I sighed, my mind going back to the last conversation I had with Heero.

_Duo, don't do this._  
_Sorry Heero, but I need to._  
_Don't go, Duo._  
_I'm sorry._  
_Please..._  
Silence.  
_I'm sorry Heero._

"Sorry." I looked up stupidly when it hit me that I said it out loud, and I coughed, my face flushing a combination of regret, anger and embarrassment. Imagine that, Shinigami, the God of Death, embarrassed by such a stupid thing. I think I killed for less than that.

The man didn't say anything, so I went on to answer his question, almost answering myself. "I had to get away from being a soldier for a while. I'm sick and tired of killing. My hands are stained. I've changed again. I hate that." The man said nothing, only nodded an acute understanding, but I knew he really couldn't comprehend it at all. I had a funny feeling that I was talking to the wrong man. Not that it mattered. I had to get it out of me so I could start breathing again. I wanted to breathe, dammit. I really wanted to breathe.

"I came back here because this is where I was born. People die everyday, Clint. I thought that if Shinigami wanted me dead like the other people, this would be the best place."

I was rewarded with a look of shock and a stunned jaw drop. "You're not going to--"

"No."

_Promise me you'll come back.  
Heero...  
Promise me.  
I--  
Promise me, Duo._  
Silence._  
Okay. I promise._

"No. I never break my promises."

Clint walked from behind the bar and pulled out a stool to sit beside me. I tried to shut him out of my head in a last attempt to be alone, but I failed when his voice came trailing in my ears, oddly hopeful and understanding. I couldn't even remember _why_ I was so god damn upset. Something about something else and how that something got me into a whole lot of other somethings that I didn't care to understand anymore. I had wrestled through a cell lock with the air shut down, breathing my last breath and wondering if I was really dead this time, if they had finally killed me. I had fought my way back to Deathscythe when the OZ bastards took him, I had fought the god damn war and all I had to show for it was an urge to slit my wrists. Why? I don't know. I guess killing does that to a man. And I killed plenty.

"I remember the day the church went down," the man--Crazy Clint--suddenly said. "I remember all those children and the screaming... I thought that you were dead, you know. And I actually, honest to Gods, cared. I wanted to kill the bastards for what they had done to you. But then they did it to me. They killed my wife when I rebelled against them. It was long after you had left, and weeks before I saw your face on that screen. I was tired of putting up with it, so I tried to do something. But I lost. They killed my wife to discipline me. I tried slitting, but they saved me so that I could wallow in my misery. They tortured me, telling me that I had killed her, that it was my fault. They enjoyed it, I was their amusement. I entertained them for weeks before they threw me out in the streets again. I should've died. I wanted to, but I didn't. My bar was ransacked by the homeless, but I managed to get it back again."

Clint paused, lost in thought. He shivered. "The day after that, I saw your face on a vid screen in the square. I didn't recognize you at first, but I know that braid, Duo. I just never really forgot it, I guess." He snorted a half-laugh. "When I saw you, and I knew, I... I intentionally went to the square to shoot myself. I had a gun in my pocket. I wanted to do it in the middle of the square so that everyone would see me and they'd know. I wanted people to know me after I died. But then I saw you and I couldn't do it."

I didn't know what to say, my mouth open and gawking. He didn't kill himself because of me? I didn't get it. "Why?" was all I could manage.

"My little beer friend had become a Gundam pilot. I saw your face on that screen and I knew it. You were one of the five. You had gotten to be something. You were fighting, Duo. I could see it even in the shot, the fire in your eyes. All that pain had done something to you. You used it. When I saw you staring down at me like that from the vid screen, I broke. I couldn't manage it. I knew that if you saw me and knew what I was planning, you'd stop me. You'd never give up like that. You wouldn't. I promised, looking up at you on the screen, that I'd never give up as long as you were still fighting."

"That was a long time ago."

"It was an old man who told me only minutes ago that he never broke his promises."

"Yeah?"

"Well I don't break mine either."

I sighed audibly. "I guess that's it then."

"Go home, Duo. Your real home."

"I have no--"

"Yes you do. Go."

I eyed him for a minute, lost in everything that had been said in the last five minutes. Or maybe not even five. It was threatening to swallow me whole and I didn't know if I should've fought against it or just let it take me in. Either way I was moving, changing.

_Go home, Duo. Your real home._ I swam in his words, lost in the current. All I could do was nod, and I was headed out the door when Clint called my name again.

"Duo. It's nice to see you again."

I grinned widely, the patented Duo Maxwell charm fitting into place. "Yeah, double C. It was nice to see you again too."

By the time I took off in the ship I barrowed from Howard, I forgot about being depressed and miserable. I still couldn't remember why I was in the first place, and it didn't even matter anymore, my thoughts glued to 'home.' I did have one. Gods help me, I actually did have a family of sorts waiting for me when I got back. A dysfunctional one, but loving in it's own way. I think I laughed at that, an image of Heero being 'lovable.' Yes. I have a home. I'm going home.

--_Fini_


End file.
